Being a student in Uppsala

Being a student in a new country can be challenging enough but Uppsala has one major hurdle that most students will encounter (though to be fair a similar situation exists in most university towns in Sweden) - finding housing. To my mind a neighbourhood that is almost exclusively student-inhabited is also a bit of an Uppsala-only phenomenon - certainly in Victoria lots of students live in apartment buildings and shared houses in the area surrounding the university but I don't think there are any 'purpose built' structures like those that exist in Flogsta (which is where I have been staying since I reached Uppsala). Finally there are the student nations which are neatly explained by this Wikipedia article. I have not yet joined a nation and will wait until the orientation week when presumably I'll get a chance to see what each of the thirteen nations at Uppsala University has to offer.

Housing

Looking for housing is the most frustrating, time-consuming and many would say soul-destroying task associated with becoming a student in Uppsala. For the non-Swedish speaking/reading student it is even worse since although Google translate is little short of miraculous it quickly becomes exhausting trying to navigate your way through text you're not 100% sure of and I suspect that even those ads that are in both English and Swedish tend to favour responders that email back in Swedish (but I don't know that for sure). I do know that it was only through the intervention of my AG (angel Gunnel - my landlady since my arrival in Uppsala) that I secured the room that will become mine in early September. But even she was getting quite concerned since she responded to probably 10-15 ads on my behalf in Swedish, singing my praises as a tenant (see why I call her an angel!) and heard nothing back. She described me in such glowing terms to my now-to-become-roomies that they put me at the head of their list of 6 or 7 candidates (I think they had over 120 responses) and I met them the next day. It was like a good first date - we clicked and despite being young enough to be my kids they have honoured me by allowing me to become their roommate.

The horrendous accommodation shortage leads to scams that entrap even the Swedes and one just recently occurred in Uppsala though I can't find any English news about it to link to. Basically the modus operandi is similar all over the country. Scammers put an ad on blocket.se (Sweden's eBay) or in some other online forum and say that the flat owner is out of the country so that although you can see the flat you can't get keys until a later date. But that doesn't stop the person showing the flat from asking for a hefty up front payment - as much as 3 months rent (so could be as much as $4,000-$5,000 Canadian depending on the flat). And then of course, as you can probably guess, when the time comes to collect keys the cellphone number of the person that showed you the flat no longer works etc or - as was the case in the article I've linked to above - you are told that someone else was the successful renter but your money is not returned. Ouch.

Basically it seems to me that if you manage to arrange your accommodation without actually being here in Uppsala (or at least in Sweden) you should try walking on water next because it's little short of a miracle. When I posted (on The Local) about how frustrated I was getting since I was receiving zero responses - not even negative ones - in the first couple of weeks of my searching I heard from a guy who told me he'd sent something like 150 emails and never heard back on most of them and after 2 years here was still unable to get to the front of the various queues that exist for the scanty supply of student housing. A Swedish friend who lives in this apartment building (which is not a student building despite being in Flogsta) suggested I try emailing the company that manages this building. I did so and the woman who emailed back said I could fill out the tenancy application she'd attached but the wait for a flat was currently running FIVE YEARS! Needless to say I didn't bother filling out the application.

I don't know what the solution(s) is/are to Uppsala's housing crisis. There are a few new places being built but progress doesn't seem to be very speedy and the problem is big enough in scope that it has severely tarnished Uppsala's reputation as a good place to study. I've heard anecdotally that some foreign students have simply just given up and gone home - it's one thing when somebody like me, who is lucky enough through an accident of birth (I was born in the UK and have maintained dual citizenship) to not have to pay tuition can't find a place but imagine if you were shelling out upwards of $18,000 per year just in tuition and couldn't find anywhere to live. Would certainly make you think twice about coming here!

One of the efforts to help alleviate the problem was the creation of the studentboet.se website (apparently it's only a couple of years old). Here those with a room - whether they own a house, are looking to rent out a room in their apartment or have an apartment or room they want to sublet - can post their ads. At one room that I went to look at the husband, who worked for the university, told me that the president had twice issued letters to all staff asking them to open their homes to students if at all possible. So everyone knows there is a problem but is anything effective actually being done about it?

A 'help a student' sign from studentboet.se

Flogsta

Please note that I haven't written the Flogsta article yet - it's coming soon, thanks for your patience.


Nations

Please note that I haven't yet written the article about Uppsala's student nations - it's coming soon, thanks for your patience.

Establishing Rituals

Any anthropologist will tell you that rituals help to define a group and bring its members together. For us in the International Health program one of our rituals is Friday waffles. The first few times we went were at Rumblingo Nation - we call it that because that is what my dumb phone (as opposed to smart phone) produced when I keyed in the name of the nation in a text message. I won't refer to it by its actual name since we no longer go there for waffles after a very disappointing experience that I may feature one day on this blog long after the statute of limitations has passed. Below is a photo of the waffles we were served that day - without JAM (which was only one of the problems of what has become known as 'Wafflegate').

Now we go to Östgöta Nation which offers all you can eat waffles for 30 SEK ($4.50) from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm every weekday. You make them yourself and there are bowls of fruit (frozen not fresh but still better than jam - raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cherries - usually two kinds are on offer), whipped cream and a squeeze bottle of chocolate sauce. Last week, which was probably the final waffle outing of 2012 there was a bottle of genuine Canadian maple syrup - yum! This nation has a fair chance of getting me to sign up for a nation card next year since then I could get waffles for 20 SEK - which is way more appealing to me than cheap beer. I enjoy the company of my classmates but all the pubs are WAYYYYY too loud for me so I usually end up ducking out as soon as the music gets going. Below are a couple of shots of the waffle delights at Östgöta Nation.

Fruit and chocolate sauce.

The waffle iron doing its work. Batter is in the stainless steel bowl and whipped cream in the rectangular stainless steel container (just visible behind the bowl). Somebody's fingers made it into the shot as well - maybe Milad's?